I have a landline. Sort of. But it's not copper. The last mile is fiber that carries my phone and my internet.

...laura

Read "A Fire upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky" by him. Awesome SF reads. He's widely regarded for some of the most imaginative aliens and alien cultures. If SF is your thing, definitely check those out.

... of Peak Digital. Which wouldn't be too surprising give the overall situation with IT and the digital space.

I've been using Motorola for my Smartphones since the G2, something like 10 years ago. I've alwas liked the fair budget options and the clean initial setup that was close to stock Android and only came with some really good and useful Moto stuff like the radio, Moto Actions and a quite neat camera app.

That Motorola comes up with a model that has shovelware on it is a first AFAICT. Don't like it. They've been bloating their lineup in recent years, I suspected that was also due to lack of parts and having to go with lots of options, but this shovelware non-sense points in a different direction: Managers milking a good established brand for a cheap throwaway increase in revenue, quality and long-term reputation be damned. ... The time to move on from Motorola might be close. That would be a shame. Don't like it.

You have to hand it to SpaceX: They know what they're doing. SpaceX is to launch-systems what Apple was to computers back in the 20-zeroes. Betting on them at this point in time is a smart move.

Senior WebDev here.

I've been building websites and webapps for 24 years now and the shit we have around today would've gotten people fired on the spot back then. Entire generations who know nothing but bloated VDOM setups and use them to build even the most trivial websites. Pagebuilder bloat loaded with images in print resolution and bullshit "consent management" widgets, pointless trackers and services that load half a GB to show some text and a button. Dimwitt deciders that couldn't tell a client from a server and haven't seen a single line of HTML in their entire life. Websites that load 10x of the entire Amiga operating system before they can even render a single pixel. ... it's a disaster and one giant stinking mess. And one of the reasons I'm shifting my career as we speak. To many clueless people calling the shots. Way to frustrating.

... is up to us. I so hope the transition away from fossil fuels and bad eco-balances continues to gain momentum, because humanity is decades to late in making that happen. I also hope that we can make the turnaround and establish feasible damage-control as not to lose the progress of human civilization of the last few centuries.

I'm 54 and once again looking to a new gig. My experience makes it easy(er) to get into conversations that aren't totally pointless and those conversations are interesting, but I also find that a lot of people who do the hiring are often at a company for a longer period of time and are often looking for Yay-sayers and do so by posting more or less random job descriptions. Sort of like "We've got total chaos here and we need you to put up with this BS and secure my position for as cheap as possible." They too fear for their jobs and rightfully so. Major shifts incoming. No news here.

This is ageism in so far as I simply can not be bullshitted anymore like some 25 year old and smell a bad project or a business model about to go belly-up from 10 miles away. I can't help it. Which makes be often times brutally honest in conversations. The result being that many don't get back to me or even give me notice of the fact. Quite a large amount of people I think fear that I could replace their job with a small shell script or something and they might even be right.

I've grown a thick skin throughout the last 24 years and also haven't had any larger illusions about industrial IT, Cloud-stuff or AI and am preparing to make a switch to a specialist user-end job where I am responsive to people needing help and handholding and otherwise just automate all the work that I can. My strong suspicion is that my skills as a dev will actually help me in that.

Ageism or not, the truth of the matter is that Peak Digital, the industrialization of IT and now AI are upending IT positions left, right and center anyway, regardless of age, so getting away from the IDE and doulbing down on learning people skills and becoming a prolific high-end user of specialized ready-made systems is most likely the way forward anyway.

Old/Senior or not, nobody needs me or anybody else to program yet another OIDC service or DBAL or CMS. They _do_ however need people who help them make sense of it all. And until AI has humaniod bots that look and talk like a young in-shape Emily Blunt do exactly that I might as well move into those jobs.

Companies would rather hire young people because inexperienced people are cheap. Hence also the huge numbers of H-1B and TFW visas - despite the hype, people knew damned well that the only reason Microsoft built their facility in Vancouver was so they could hire temporary foreign workers once they had exhausted their H-1B quota in Seattle. Cheap, do as they're told, work 70 hours a week.

When my current employers show me the door (or I walk) I know I'll be unemployable in tech at 62. So be it; I've had a good run and have a huge backlog of other things I want to do.

...laura

... when lawmakers are at the IT skill-level of a 1st-grader.

The non-sense that get's put out by lawmakers has nothing to do with the usefulness and the quite very good design of the EU GDPR and everything to do with the abysmal lack of culture concerning IT and the dealing and with and usage of digital devices and the protocols, services and applications that come with them.

Until learning the very basics of handling an end-user device becomes mandatory for children, like learning to read and to write, this non-sense will continue.

That using MS 395 for authority-work is a blatant violation of the EU GDPR anyone with two braincells recognizes instantly. The people are just to ignorant, dumb and/or lazy to actually follow the rulings.

All these sites have been shadow-banned by the usual search engines. I'd love to see one so I know what to watch for.

...laura

... have ginormous deserts, some of which actually have the raw materials for solar panels and batteries right in the ground. Elon Musk himself made a pretty compelling case on how solar can fix just about all of you're energy problems. May I from across the pond suggest that you get to it?

What technology did you have in mind?

We have far better control systems and radios and things, but making rockets that don't blow themselves to kingdom come if you look at them the wrong way is as hard in 2024 as it was in 1977. Or for that matter, 1969.

...laura

Depending on my mode and mood I can envision quite an amount of detail. Add to that my creativity that has ideas queueing up around the block each day and you understand why I'm not just an IT expert but also have a diploma in performing arts and once upon a time even considered studying fashion design.

I'm one of those (apparently rather) rare cases that are good at coding but also quite good at visual design. I can appreciate good design and with my verbal precision trained by software development I can be very specific and articulate about what I like and don't like about specific designs. A trait that even at times has designers ask me about feedback to their work.

It's actually quite awesome to have both those talents/skillets which I should probably appreciate and be thankful for a little more often.

That been said good design and a sense for aesthetics can actually be learned and many programmers actually have a decent foundation to do exactly that even though their default style might be cringe when untrained. By and large it's a skill like any other and there are tons of methods and sources to learn from. For anyone who might care.

... and f*ck itself. I think we unanimously agree on that one.